Not enough patience or compassion to deal with, much less love, that person in your life.

Not enough leadership abilities or knowledge to lead that group or ministry or church or organization.

Not enough faith to keep going.

We’ve all been there. I’m there right now. I look at our situation and there’s simply not enough to make this work. I see it as a fact—the numbers don’t add up—and it feels so hopeless, doesn’t it?

Our circumstances are no surprise to Jesus. He’s been here before. There was the time when a huge crowd of people, 5,000 in all (but that may have been just the men) had followed him to hear him teach, but now they were a long way from town and were hungry. You know the story, right? Jesus charged the disciples with finding some food, and they brought him five loaves of bread and 2 fish.

That’s not enough food to feed so many people. The numbers don’t add up.

The disciples had seen Jesus miraculously take “not enough” before and do what only he could do. He took people with not enough strength in their legs because of birth defects or diseases or injuries and made them able to walk. He took people with not enough sight or hearing or even brain-cell or heart-beat activity, and was able to provide what was needed. Once, his disciples told him they didn’t have enough faith, and he was able to give them the faith they needed.

Let’s get back to those 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. Jesus had the ability to work with nothing at all. He had done so before. He had the ability to multiply the small rations as the disciples held them in their hands. But Jesus responded with a phrase that we need to hear:

Bring them here to me (Matt. 14:18).

That’s what I need to do. It’s what you need to do with your “not enough.”

Bring the little, the “not enough” you do have to Jesus. He is able to do immeasurably more with your “not enough” than you can ask or even imagine (Eph. 3:20).

Take your meager finances and offer them, surrender them, to Jesus. He can take your “not enough” to pay the bills and, in his hands, do something that only he can do. But you have to give it to him.

Take your “not enough” skills or experience or patience or love or knowledge or faith or whatever seems like not enough to you—and take it to Jesus and see what he will do.

Maybe it’s time to dedicate your business or your job or your family or your budget to God. Begin treating whatever it is as his, not yours. Be a steward of what he provides you with.

Stay connected to the Vine. Apart from him, there’s never enough. But when you abide in him, you will not only have enough, you’ll bear enough fruit for others as well. He will take our “not enough” and multiply it into “more than enough.”

Michael Mack has been involved in small group ministry as a pastor, writer, trainer, and speaker for more than 25 years. He founded SmallGroups.com in 1995 and started Small Group Leadership in 2012. He became the 12th editor of Christian Standard magazine in 2017 and continues to speak in churches about small groups, discipleship, and leadership.
He lives in Pewee Valley, Kentucky (just outside Louisville), with his wife Heidi. They have four young adult children. Michael enjoys mountain and road biking with a group of friends.
See the "About Michael Mack" page under About Us for more about him.